“ASTRONOMERS can give no explanation for dozens of mysterious lights seen flying above Epsom and Stoneleigh”….however later in the article;

“With only scant reports of the Epsom sightings to go on, Judy Jaafar, secretary of the British Unidentified Flying Objects Research Association, was unsure”.

On an amusing note, i came across abbreviations of UFO (see here, half way down the page), with Ultra Freak Out given in the Governmental->Military category. The entry above in the Science Dictionary on the abbreviation of UFO says:

“UFO (yooh-ef-oh)…….The abbreviation for unidentified flying object. Sometimes referred to colloquially as “flying saucers.”Most UFO sightings have prosaic explanations; there is no hard evidence that extraterrestrial beings are visiting Earth“.

“… Jaymie Matthews, an associate professor of astronomy at the University if British Columbia, argued that while he and other scientists have spent years searching the universe for Earth-like planets that would support intelligent life, none have been discovered yet.”

“Mr. Friedman also poured cold water on the argument that an alien landing like Roswell would be too big to cover up. He said thousands of people worked on the Manhattan project to build the first atomic bomb, but it stayed a secret until one was dropped on Japan”.

On the 13th September, it was announced that “Google backs private moon landing” (source BBC NEWS). Google is to entice private firms to send robots too the moon, with the first to land being awarded $20 million. It mentions that:“In a statement announcing the competition, Google and the X-Prize Foundation said it had been created in a bid to stimulate research into low-cost robotic exploration of space. The top prize of $20m will be given to the private firm that soft lands a rover on the Moon which then completes a series of objectives.”

For some video clips of this see below:

Related to this are links to the lunar Lander challenge both here and here (october 26-28th october,2007).

The video “Fastwalkers” might be of interest, and can be viewed here (although the quality is not great). To buy the official copy, please go here .

Also an article worth looking at is “Invaders from Elsewhere” which goes into flying saucers, weirdness and pop culture.